A good goal must be achievable.

The goal must be something that you or the individuals involved in the goal have the ability to accomplish. Often the best goals stretch your abilities but are not too easy. Harder goals can be achieved through higher motivation, greater self efficacy, and the correct tools (including accountability) to accomplish the goal.

High need for achievement

David Mclelland developed a theory of needs which motivate action. Included in this theory is high need for achievement. People with this need do better with goals that require real effort but are achievable. http://www.netmba.com/mgmt/ob/motivation/mcclelland/ http://www.businessballs.com/davidmcclelland.htm

This requires that you have reasonable control over the required steps (objectives http://www.bestoutcomes.blogspot.com/) to accomplish your goals.

As people set and achieve increasingly difficult goals, their ability, understanding and capacity increases.

"We find that people's beliefs about their efficacy affects the sorts of choices they make in very significant ways. In particular, it affects their levels of motivation and perseverance in the face of obstacles. Most success requires persistent efforts, so low self-efficacy becomes a self-limiting process. In order to succeed, people need a sense of self-efficacy, strung together with resilience to meet the inevitable obstacles and inequities of life." – Albert Bandura“Persons who have a strong sense of efficacy deploy their attention and effort to the demands of the situation and are spurred by obstacles to greater effort”. – Albert Bandura
Additional information: http://communitycollaboration.blogspot.com/2008/06/be-careful-what-you-ask-for.html

Please also see Ausubel’s Meaningful Reception Learning http://www.indiana.edu/~p540alex/Summer2003/unit4.html http://www.csudh.edu/dearhabermas/advorgbk02.htm
http://eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/custom/portlets/recordDetails/detailmini.jsp?_nfpb=true&_&ERICExtSearch_SearchValue_0=ED056848&ERICExtSearch_SearchType_0=no&accno=ED056848
http://ndwild.psych.und.nodak.edu/book/summary/chap2.html

Meaningful Reception Learning tells me, and this is my experience, that I can work on learning a very difficult concept that I know nothing about or have no connections with based on the concepts of Ausubel. My experience and the understanding of this tool has provided me with the requisite efficacy. At about the age of 18/19 I needed to learn French. It was very difficult at first and I did not have a lot of self efficacy or belief that I could do it. I remember after memorizing something that I believed my brain was full and could absolutely not take anything else in. French does have some advantages for an English speaker over a language such as Japanese or Korean. French and English have a number of similar words, the alphabet is basically the same. According to Ausubel there was already some core information that I could attach new information to. After moving to Quebec and getting through the first six months, new information became easier and easier to assimilate. I compare it to creating a new dot of information and learning. Initially it can be really difficult but once that dot is there, as long as I continue to learn new things that I can connect to that dot, the dot becomes bigger and bigger the connections come easier. Were I to learn Japanese or Korean, that initial dot would be much more difficult than it was for French; however, once I had created enough information to start to make connections and I applied these principles, the difficulty would ease as and if I continued to learn.